


Notification Settings

by mousapelli



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Getting Together, Long-Distance Relationship, M/M, Texting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-31
Updated: 2017-12-31
Packaged: 2019-02-26 02:48:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,118
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13226559
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mousapelli/pseuds/mousapelli
Summary: Otabek and Yuri have an intense texting relationship.





	Notification Settings

**Author's Note:**

  * For [LordOnisyr](https://archiveofourown.org/users/LordOnisyr/gifts).



> Written for SASO 2017, Quotes bonus round. Quote was "I'm scared of everything. I'm scared of what I saw, I'm scared of what I did, of who I am, and most of all I'm scared of walking out of this room and never feeling the rest of my whole life the way I feel when I'm with you." -Baby, Dirty Dancing
> 
> Amy did something a little like this for shiritori and i just wanted more over intense yurabeka.

The intensity of what happens with Yuri at the Grand Prix doesn't alarm Otabek as much as it probably should. In all the places Otabek has moved it usually happens at least once, a connection that feels stronger than everything, not entirely explained either by mental wavelength or teenage hormones or even the common goal of working themselves practically to death together (which, Otabek is quick to point out, is always an excellent way to bond people quickly together; when he and his brothers fight, their father sends them out to chop wood, cleverly making himself an outside enemy they can complain about together). But Otabek finds, for better or worse, the more intense those connections are, the more he needs to remain in that person's physical vicinity to maintain it. He texts his university-aged friends in Almaty multiple times a day, but old rinkmates only good lucks before competitions, if even that.

Yuri isn't like that. The further they get from each other in physical space, the most Yuri texts, instas, pokes. After the radio silence of first Yuri being on a plane and then Otabek, Otabek's phone practically vibrates itself off his coffee table from the force of being blown up by hours of pent-up Plisetsky.

[Pent-up Plisetsky would be a good name for your band] Otabek texts Yuri, instead of responding to any of the literally dozens of notifications that are Yuri's doing.

[u think everythings a band] Yuri snipes back. He sends a pictures of his cat, lolling on its back with its paws in the air on what he assumes is Yuri's bed, and then a selfie of Yuri in essentially the same position, phone up in the air to take the shot.

Otabek barely ever uses Instagram, but it seems like there's nothing he can do except for to post the two pictures side by side with the caption [I see no difference.] He gets a blistering string of invective from Yuri in response, and Otabek can't do anything other than stand in his living room, starving and only half out of his grubby airplane clothes, laughing helplessly at his phone.

Two weeks later, it's become a steady part of Otabek's daily rhythm, the gentle buzz of his phone in his pocket as he walks to the rink, reads on his couch, hauls groceries home. Otabek doesn't mind it, and he leaves his notifications on. Yuri amuses him, and the attention is flattering. When he's out for dinner with his friends, they hassle him about the frequency of it, and of his clearly quite high-maintenance new girlfriend.

"Boyfriend," Otabek says absently, occupied replying to Yuri's question of spotted hoodie purple leggings or zebra stripe everything. It's not even close to true, but it causes a ripple of surprise around him that Otabek enjoys. Just because he's not running his mouth every second doesn't mean he doesn't like causing trouble just as much as Yuri, maybe more. [Don't mix stripes and plaid] he replies to Yuri.

[fuck u] Yuri responds. A picture follows of Yuri with his cheetah-print armed jacket over an improbable pair of blue zebra leggings, Yuri flashing Otabek the middle finger and making a rude face straight out of shounen anime. [ur a plaid]

"Cute," the girl next to Otabek says, shamelessly reading over Otabek's shoulder. "But I call bullshit you're dating Yuri Plisetsky. He's got room in his head for one gold, and it's not you, Altin."

"Ooh, so clever," Otabek retorts. He could pull up any one of the more cutesy selfies Yuri has sent him, but instead he goes to his videos and pulls up the one of Yuri's Exhibition, hands over the phone, and then sits back and waits, arms folded.

[do i text u too much] Yuri asks a week later. Otabek blinks at it when he checks his notifications; the time stamp says Yuri sent it when he'd known Otabek would already be practicing, and he hasn't sent anything else in the hours since. Otabek barely knows what to do with himself without a sea of messages and pictures to wade through. He doesn't know what would make Yuri ask that, and then starts to second-guess how often he's been messaging Yuri as well. Come to think of it, in the last week, he's initiated more of them than usual.

[can we Skype in an hour?] Otabek asks instead of answering the question; they've done it once before to test it out, so it isn't that weird. Otabek watches patiently as the typing dots appear, disappear, appear, disappear.

[yea]

Otabek tries not to think about it in the shower, on the way home, reheating some leftovers. When he opens his laptop, Yuri's username is already logged in green, and Otabek clicks it. Yuri is scowling at the screen of his netbook when his face appears, hair hanging over half of it, legs crossed in front of him and gripping his ankles.

"Mila said I text you too much," Yuri says without preamble, and he's not even scowling at Otabek so much as somewhere off to the right. "She said if her phone buzzed as much as mine does she'd put her fist through her phone and strangle the guy. Are you just humoring me or what?"

"Can you even be humored?" Otabek wonders out loud before he can stop himself, and then when Yuri's expression turns nuclear, quickly adds, "Text me."

"The fuck, I'm TALKING to you!" Yuri snarls. Otabek stares, impassive, and Yuri grabs for his phone, grumbling the whole time he thumbs an irritated message. "There."

Otabek's phone buzzes on the desk, loud enough that Yuri raises an eyebrow. Otabek glances down, and his screen says [ur a fkkn asshole] for the second before his lock screen goes dark again.

"That's loud," Yuri says. His rage melts away as quickly as it comes, and now he's picking at the hem of his leggings. "You could turn it off."

"I like it," Otabek says, blunt, although he doesn't explain what exactly it is that he does like, the attention or the texts or Yuri himself. "Am I texting you too much?"

"Have you MET me? That's not even a thing," Yuri grumbles. He bluffs, "I knew that hag didn't know what she was talking about, geez. Tomorrow I'm telling her to fuck right off."

"You didn't tell her that today?" Otabek asks. He's trying not to smile too hard, but he doesn't think it's working.

" _Obviously_ ," Yuri snaps, flopping back onto his back. Distance makes his next sentence indistinct, and then his cat appears and digs claws into Yuri's thigh, purring happily at Yuri's shriek.

Otabek knows kind of how the cat feels.


End file.
